Blending families is complicated and requires a massive amount of teamwork. You hope everyone will support each other when a crisis hits, but sometimes a sudden emergency reveals exactly who people really are. One mother on Reddit is currently getting absolutely dragged by the entire internet after she and her older teenage children completely abandoned her husband during a terrifying medical event. Her sheer lack of empathy is honestly breathtaking.
The Original Poster is a mother with two older kids from a previous relationship. She has a nineteen year old daughter and a seventeen year old son. She has been with her current husband for four years, and together they share a three year old toddler. On the day in question, the husband was on childcare duty at home with the toddler while the OP went out to a restaurant to meet her brother and his new girlfriend.
Everything was perfectly fine until the husband received a devastating phone call. His father was experiencing a severe medical emergency. Any normal person would panic and immediately rush to the hospital. But the husband was stuck at home with a three year old. He desperately needed someone to watch the toddler so he could go be with his dad. He turned to the two young adults living under his roof for help.
He first begged his seventeen year old stepson to watch the toddler. The teenager flat out refused because he was planning to go hang out with his friends. The frantic husband then went to his nineteen year old stepdaughter. Instead of helping her stepfather during a literal family emergency, the adult college student locked herself inside her bedroom to study. Two capable young adults completely turned their backs on a man whose father was rushing to the hospital.
Out of options at home, the husband called his wife. He explained the medical emergency and desperately needed her to come home to take over childcare. The OP refused to leave her lunch date. She claimed it was her only chance to meet her brother’s new girlfriend. She prioritized appetizers and casual conversation over her husband’s father having a life threatening medical crisis.
With absolutely zero support from his own household, the frantic husband was forced to drag a three year old toddler to an emergency room. His own mother eventually had to wrangle the toddler at the hospital while dealing with her husband’s medical emergency. When the husband finally returned home, he rightfully lashed out at everyone. He called them selfish and unfeeling, which is the understatement of the century. Instead of apologizing for abandoning him, the OP actually defended her teenagers. She told him that the older son could not possibly skip his social hangout and the daughter could not be bothered to watch her little brother while reading a textbook. The husband told her to get the f*ck out with that bullsh!t.
Realizing he was living with incredibly callous people, the husband dropped the hammer. He announced he was officially canceling their upcoming family Christmas trip. The teenagers immediately threw a tantrum and called it unfair. The OP had the absolute audacity to call her husband unreasonable for punishing them. The entire family then decided to give him the silent treatment, to which the exhausted husband simply replied “good riddance.”
The situation somehow got even worse in the update. The husband decided he will be spending Christmas entirely away from his toxic wife and stepchildren. He is taking his toddler and spending the holidays with his family so he can be near his recovering father. The teenagers are now bailing to go to their biological dad’s house. The OP is sitting in the wreckage of her own making, crying that her husband is abandoning her for the holidays.
The internet unanimously declared the OP and her older kids the massive aholes in this situation. When a medical emergency happens, you drop everything. You cancel the lunch, you skip the hangout with friends, and you close the textbook. The husband learned exactly where he ranks in his wife’s list of priorities, and it is firmly behind a casual lunch date. Would you ever forgive your spouse if they abandoned you during a family crisis? Let us know in the comments below!
I hold hardly agree with the husband. The wife could’ve always asked her brother and his new girlfriend to come to the house because she had to take care of her son. The stepson could’ve held out watching his little brother for a little bit and then gone to be with his friends later, and the older stepdaughter should’ve stepped up and helped out, even though she was studying it wouldn’t kill her to put the book down for a little bit. This was total BS if he asked me they’re all three of the assholes. I do not believe the husband is in the wrong I think him canceling the Christmas trip was spot on the right punishment for all three of them and I guess the mom being abandoned at Christmas time was her own fault.